Conceptualisations of Labour and the Making of the French Working Class in the 1830s

Abstract

The emergence of the working class as a unified subject in France at the beginning of the 19th century was linked to transformations in the conceptualisation of work. At the beginning of the July Monarchy, two distinct conceptions of labour emerged within the nascent liberal and socialist movements. What they had in common was that they saw the working class as a single, unified entity, over and above the trade differences that had organised labour before the 1789 Revolution. But they differed in important respects. For the liberals, labour, as a social activity, put workers at risk of being influenced by immoral doctrines and examples of vice. In contrast to property, which led the middle classes to political moderation, work was seen as potentially radicalising workers, who therefore had to be kept under the supervision of the state and employers. For socialists, on the other hand, labour was an all-encompassing activity that should make the working class a hegemonic subject.